To all those of you who think the F-35 is incapable or can't do what normal planes can.......
Lets look at some figures against some proven and supposedly superior platforms, lets compare them and see.
If you really know something about planes you would know that you basically need 3 essentials to be maneuverable:
1. Lots of Lift
2. Lots of thrust
3. Little Drag
Lets discuss lift:
I know you probably heard Pierre Spray said that the F-35 is a dog because it has little wings. and has to carry 110lbs of airplane for every square foot of wing.
Pierre Spray was involved in the aircraft industry at around the 1960s where fighters were basically tubes with wings.
At that time all of the lift came from the wings. small wings = small lift.
But at around that time Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) was experimenting with Lifting Body designs, they wanted to produce fuselages that can assist the wings in producing lift instead of being dead weight.
Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin-Marietta_X-24
That’s why at around the 1970s we began to see fighters with wide flat fuselage sections and smaller wings. So lets compare the wing loading of the F-4 against Pierre Spray's favorite F-16 variant the F-16A.
F-4
Empty: 30,328lbs
Load:8000 lbs
Comabt Weight: 38,328
Wing Area: 530 feet
Wing Loading: 72 lbs/ sq feet
F-16A
Empty: 16,300
Load:8000 lbs
Comabt Weight: 24,300
Wing Area: 300 feet
Wing Loading: 81 lbs/ sq feet
So by Pierre Spray's own argument the horribly turning F-4 should fly circles around his hotrod F-16? What’s happening here?
Well the F-16 does not rely on just wings to produce lift, it has a blended body and wing design, plus LERX that produce vortices above the airplane (if you remember you physics, high pressure below + low pressure above creates lift)
around 40% of the F-16s total lift does not come from the wings at all. So in reality the F-16's actual wing loading when loaded with 8,000lbs is closer to 49 lbs per square feet not 81 lbs.
The F-35 is the same. to get the F-35 to have 110lbs / sq ft of wing loading as Pierre Spray said it needs to carry 21,300 lbs of load.
The f-16 can never do that, but the F-35 can! that’s what’s great about this plane, it gives you options, if you need to go to a long range mission then sure, the F-35 CAN carry 18,000lbs of fuel and 18,000lbs of weapons.
But if your going to a CAP mission where a dogfight is possible, then why load it with 21K? Most likely an F-35 would take off with 18,000lbs, And when it gets to combat it would probably have 10,000lbs depending on the range to the target.
So lets pit the F-35 against some really good aircraft, Wing Loading calculation.
All loaded with 8,000 lbs, perfect for dogfighting:
Wing Loading:
Mig-29 M/M2: 91
F-16C (block 50): 90
F-35A: 81
F/A-18C: 77
Su-30MKI: 72
So as you can see at dogfighting weights, the F-35 is not bad at all, its not the best but really not all that bad.
Now consider this, the F-35 probably has the most efficient body lifting surface of all these aircraft due to the fact that its fuselage has the smoothest flatest surface of all these planes, not a lot of disturbance for the wind to flow around on.
So lets give all these aircraft a Body lifting coefficient of 40% but to be conservative lets give the F-35 45%, the truth is probably much larger but hey lets keep it down.
Wing loading plus body lift:
Mig-29 (M/M2): 54.6
F-16C (block 50): 54
F/A-18C: 46
F-35A: 44
Su-30MKI: 43
The F-16s wing loading is similar to the Mig-29s which is why it replicates the Mig-29 in RedFlag.
But Notice how the F-35's wing loading is so close to the F/A-18 and just 1 pound above the Su-30, which is why when you ask pilots they will say that the F-35 maneuvers like an F/A-18 with better acceleration.
And really acceleration is the only thing Hornet pilots dont like about it.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-d ... -tactical/
Lt Col Matt Kelly wrote:
Operational pilots should be thrilled with the F-35's performance, Kelly said. The F-35 Energy-[Maneuverability] diagrams, which display an aircraft’s energy and maneuvering performance within its airspeed range and for different load factors, are similar to the F/A-18 but the F-35 offers better acceleration at certain points of the flight envelope.
So do you still think they are lying?
Now lets talk thrust. This is a no brainer, the F-35's engine is rated at 43,000lbs the most powerful in the world. So lets cut to the chase and compare.
Thrust to weight at max thrust:
(All loaded with 8,000 lbs)
Mig-29 (M/M2): 1.05
F-16C (block 50): 1.05
Su-30MKI: 1.13
F/A-18C: 1.14
F-35A: 1.15
Surprise Surprise, the F-35 has the best Thrust to weight ratio of all of the planes involved, and really in a dogfight Thrust to weight can be more valuable than Wing loading.
Now Drag:
All these planes will carry weapons externally adding lots of drag. with a full centerline tank the F-16 is reduced to 7Gs max and the Mig-29 is reduced to an appalling 4Gs, the F-35 will carry most if not all its missiles internally, very little drag.
So to conclude, even without Stealth, even without all its advanced sensors and ECM suits, the F-35 will (in the words of Pierre Spray) wax the competition every single time, then if the F-35 is a dog the rest should be compared to kittens. Youtubesta kopsattu, mutta asiaahan tuo puhuu
